Centre County has moved back into the CDC’s high COVID-19 community level
Centre County moved back into the high level of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 Community Level scale on Thursday. It had been in the low level since mid-March.
The CDC recommends indoor masking in counties with high community levels, regardless of vaccination status. The move prompted the State College Area School District to announce Thursday night a return to mandatory masking indoors, effective Tuesday.
Community levels are measured by weekly new cases per 100,000 people, new COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 people and the percent of staffed inpatient beds due to COVID.
A low community level requires fewer than 200 weekly COVID cases per 100,000 people; based on data updated Thursday evening, Centre County had 248.79 cases per 100,000 people for the week of May 19-25.
Mount Nittany Health had 10 COVID-19 patients on May 25, according to the hospital’s dashboard, and had 11 patients each day since Saturday. From May 19-25, the county has had 13.7 new COVID admissions per 100,000 people, according to the CDC, and 5.7% staffed inpatient beds in use by patients with confirmed COVID.
A more infectious subvariant of omicron has been causing case numbers to rise in Pennsylvania and across the country. As of Thursday, all but three Pennsylvania counties are at high transmission levels, a different scale than community levels.
Prior to the change in levels, local schools were already starting to see a spike in cases. Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School reinstated its mask mandate this month and the SCASD “strongly” encouraged community members to wear mask indoors due to rising cases.
In a Thursday night message to families, SCASD Superintendent Bob O’Donnell wrote that masking indoors will again be mandatory starting Tuesday, in line with the district following CDC guidance during the pandemic. If the county drops to the medium or low level again, the district will revert to optional masking indoors.
In adherence to the CDC’s guidance, Penn State is also requiring masks be worn indoors in counties with high COVID-19 community levels. The university announced Wednesday that applied to Penn State Abington, Behrend, Brandywine, Great Valley, Hazleton, Lehigh Valley, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
“As this sixth wave of COVID-19 spreads across Pennsylvania, it is likely that we will see more campuses move to require masking as their home counties move from yellow (medium) or green (low) to orange (high),” Kelly Wolgast, director of the university’s COVID-19 Operations Control Center, stated in the Wednesday news release.
